Lighting Techniques

Paintbrush Mustaches

Hair Pull

The Everyday Superhero

I had the opportunity just a few months ago to do my first “real” studio shoot. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have our own studio, but we made do with some large black paper for a backdrop, a soft box and an umbrella.
I pretty much had the choice to do whatever I wanted for the creative aspect of the shoot so after lots of debate, I finally decided on using splattered paint as my theme. The idea behind the theme would be that the girls were having a sleepover and decided they wanted to paint the walls. After a bit, they got into a paint war and that’s where my pictures fit in. Using this theme, I picked some models who I felt would fit best in the theme.

My models were two girls I’ve been friends with for the past few years. Michaela and Stephanie are both art students and pretty much squealed with excitement when I asked if they wanted to be my models. I was very surprised when they asked if we could do it the following night. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to get some great shots, I decided to go with my splattered paint theme and see if I could get everything necessary that night. I went to Target and got two pairs of sweatpants for the girls: one pink and one turquoise. I never really realized how awkward it is to be browsing the woman’s section for clothes until I got a few glances from the other shoppers. Putting that out of my mind though, I quickly grabbed a few t-shirts and then ran to Home Depot to grab a few paintbrushes and a paper/plastic tarp for the paint background. Total cost: about $50.

The photo shoot was scheduled for Thursday, January 5th from 3-6 but it took a bit longer than that due to the time that was required for the paint to dry. The girls, both being art students, were easily able to get a hold of multiple colors of paint. They splattered the paint on the tarp and each other out on the sidewalk. It was a pain to clean up all the paint that got on the concrete. I got a few others to help and we quickly rubbed snow all over the paint to clean it up before it dried. One of my friends, Sarah, was essential in helping me set up the shoot and stayed with me throughout the night fixing light positions or helping me with posing the girls.

Returning back inside, we set up the tarp in front of our black paper backdrop with the lights shining on it. Creative poses have been hard for me in the past and this shoot was started out the same way. Stephanie and Michaela were very easy-going and seemed to be having a great time which really helped me set up better poses for them. Some of my favorite shots from the shoo came about as spur of the moment ideas rather than the list of pre-planned poses I had created beforehand.

We ended up finishing the shoot around 7:30, but still had to clean up everything which set us back another half hour. I felt bad that I had kept them so long, but I got lots of awesome pictures from it. Since I had taken up so much more of their night than I had originally planned, I offered to pay for dinner for the girls. Without their help and their excitement, the photo shoot would have been much more difficult.

We are a group of art loving individuals who devote our spare time to taking pictures, making videos and designing websites. When we finish with projects, we post about them here on our portfolio/blog.